The Real and Fake Potters

Over the next two days, Harry learned firsthand just how heavy a mountain of maternal love could be. "Harry, it's cool in the shopping center. Put on this light jacket." Lily draped it over his shoulders. Harry wanted to say he wasn't cold—in fact, he was a little hot—but when he saw the concern in her eyes, he obediently nodded and lied that he was indeed a little cold.

At the restaurant, Lily ordered almost every dish on the menu. Harry's plate was piled high with food she had served him. Yes, he couldn't finish it all; his plate was overflowing with "maternal love."

Lily took him from one shopping center to another, picking out new clothes nonstop. She also brought out a Muggle camera and took pictures everywhere, until the developed photographs made a towering stack. Harry quietly planned to share them with Ron when he returned to Hogwarts, though a small pang of regret crept into his heart. If only Dad could have been in the pictures too.

He watched Lily from the sidelines as she picked through piles of clothes, choosing quite a few styles suited to someone in his mid-to-late teens, as though she wanted to buy all the clothes he would need for the next several years at once. Suddenly, his nose prickled and his eyes grew warm.

That evening, Lily took Harry to the zoo. Harry held her hand tightly all the way there. Children accompanied by their parents were everywhere. At that moment, he was no different from any ordinary child. For a short while, he had a complete family. That was wonderful; he was happy. At least at this very moment, he was extremely happy. Now he was no different from the other children, Harry thought, fooling himself.

The trouble started in the reptile house. Lily was actually a little afraid of these legless creatures, but Harry was too curious, so she had no choice but to stop and look with him.

Harry pressed himself against the glass and hissed back and forth with a snake. She had almost forgotten that the kid was a Parselmouth. She was just about to go over and pull Harry off the glass—plastered against it like that, he looked like a gecko. "Harry..."

Before she could finish, Harry suddenly fell into the snake pit. He had literally fallen into the snake pit: the glass disappeared, and Harry tumbled into the python enclosure. Good heavens. "Harry, you're running the wrong way!" Once Harry realized what had happened, he fled in a panic, caring only about running forward.

Lily watched helplessly as he ran deeper into the pythons' habitat. If the Chosen One were eaten by a python, Dumbledore would immediately turn into the most terrifying dark wizard of the century and flatten her.

"Harry!" She quickly jumped into the snake pit to search for her ready-made son, who had fallen who knew where. "Harry, where are you?"

When the zoo staff learned that a child had fallen into the reptile enclosure, they hurriedly called security, and the situation grew increasingly urgent. The farther Lily went, the more she felt something was wrong. The enclosure was far more spacious than it looked, and after walking for a long time, she still couldn't find an exit. There was no sign of her son, and she had ended up completely lost herself. It was awful.

Meanwhile, Harry slipped as he fled in panic and fell into a hidden hole. After he tumbled down the passage to the other end, he looked up into a pair of light hazel eyes. "Harry?"

The other boy called him by name without hesitation. Harry studied the boy before him: he had messy black hair, round glasses identical to Harry's perched on his nose, and a flying broomstick marked Nimbus 1400 in his hand.

Mrs. Euphemia's voice called from a distance. "James Potter! Did you sneak out to play with your broom again? I told you not to use it in front of outsiders. Muggles might see you!"

"I know, Mum!" James called back casually, his gaze fixed on Harry, his eyes full of surprise. "Hello, Harry. How did you get here? I thought only Lily and I could travel to your time. I didn't expect you to be able to come here too."

Harry stared at the boy whose features were almost identical to his own, except for his gentle hazel-brown eyes. This was his father, whom he had never met. Harry felt that things had gotten serious. "I came here, but Mum didn't come back with me. This is bad."

"What did you say? Lily didn't come here? Did she travel through time and space again?" James felt as if lightning had struck him, as though the sky were falling.

"James Potter! Did you hear me?" Euphemia came storming out, intending to bring her wayward son home, only to look up and see two boys who looked exactly alike.

Then she found two James Potters—or rather, she couldn't quite call them two, since her son was easy to recognize by his bearing. But what about the other one? He had the same face as James, and she was certain she had given birth to only one child, not twins. Those emerald-green eyes... Mrs. Potter, who had been born into the wizarding world and seen all manner of strange things, suddenly thought of something. "James, who is this young guest?"

"Mum, this is Harry. Harry Potter."

With her suspicion confirmed, Euphemia hurriedly took the two boys back to Potter Manor. Fleamont looked at the two identical faces before him and fell silent for a long time.

"Child, what year were you born?"

"1980, sir."

"Oh, oh, child." Fleamont had never expected to meet his grandson before he was even a hundred. It was a remarkable thing. Before he could ask who the boy's mother was, James anxiously spoke up. "Is Lily still over there? Or has she already come back? No, I have to write to her."

James raced up to the second floor, his feet thundering on the stairs. Harry stood where he was, unsure what to do. The two people before him were his grandparents, and the enormous mismatch in their ages made him feel awkward all over.

At the same time, Lily also slipped and fell through a spatial rift onto the lawn of her family's villa. Petunia was coming home with a canvas bag when she spotted her sister lying on the lawn. "Lily, how can you lie on the lawn like that? It's so unladylike."

Lily scrambled to her feet. God bless, may Harry be all right. She assumed that the timeline had simply righted itself, and of course she had no idea Harry was now at James's house.

At Potter Manor, Harry naturally received a mountain of paternal love as well. He had a pile of pictures of himself and Lily beside him, and James admitted he was jealous. For Merlin's sake, he didn't even have a picture with Lily, so why should his son? "Since you've had so many pictures taken with Lily, have some taken with your dear father too."

James put an arm around Harry's shoulders while the magical camera snapped picture after picture with a constant popping and clicking. Harry had good reason to suspect it would start smoking and break down at any moment. Life with James was utter chaos. As the Potter family's little tyrant, he took Harry all over the manor.

They also went to every place they could visit in Godric's Hollow, including Tales of Blossoms, the shop Lily had opened. When James pointed out a supermarket and told Harry that Lily had opened it, Harry was completely baffled. How had he never known his mother had opened a shop like that? Perhaps Hagrid had worried it would upset him, or perhaps the shop had closed down later, which was why he had never mentioned it, Harry thought.